Why ‘That Awkward Moment’ Made Me Want To Become A Communist

As I watched the trailers for That Awkward Moment, I kept having a visceral “Oh screw this” reaction, even after only a few seconds. Which sparked an internal debate for me. I wondered Is there really something wrong with this movie?Or am I just not ready to see young, hot Disney Channel mannequins bro it up like Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson did in movies a younger me considered classics? I was okay with hating this, but not if it meant turning into the mean old principal who hates rock n’ roll. I don’t think I’m ready for that, I don’t own enough sweater vests. Having now seen it, I’m convinced there’s something more to my horrified uncanny valley reaction than just hating teenyboppers because they’re screwing and having fun.

See, That Awkward Moment wants to have it both ways. We’re supposed to laugh at the young, dumb, full-of-cum fratty good time boys while they drink and party, yet still envy their clean coiffed Ralph Lauren catalog looks and shabby chic Crate and Barrel apartments. The whole time I was watching it I found myself thinking Man, I should get a cool overcoat like that. Man, I should get stylishly printed drapes like that. Man, I should get a beautiful tall girlfriend with a long slender neck like that.

Is this how girls feel when they watch shitty rom-coms? How do they do it? Why do they do it? I’ve now seen one dude version of a rom-com, and I already understand the appeal of Communism. Enough! Military haircuts and grey jumpsuits for everyone!

That Awkward Moment isn’t the first work ever to attempt to combine juvenile social hijinks with aspirational hip New York styling, but there’s something… off about it. And I think age does have something to do with it, but not in the GRRR, MILLENIALS! kind of way. Sarah Jessica Parker was 33 when the first season of Sex and the City aired. Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, and Zac Efron are 26, and they’re dudes. Yet their hair and clothes and apartments always look perfect, and they’re always hanging out at the coolest bars and having sex with the hottest girls without even trying. That Awkward Moment has made everyone younger and dumber and hornier, while simultaneously making them hipper and sharper and more sophisticated, like some insidious Hitler Youth infomercial for Manhattan. Sure, Patrick Bateman was 27 and well put together in American Psycho, but him being a psychotic, appearances-obsessed yuppie was the entire basis of that story. That Awkward Moment is essentially presenting us with a bunch of homicidal Patrick Batemens, while trying to pass them off as your cuddly best bud. That’s the root of the uncanny valley reaction. I don’t hate them because they’re young, I’m put off because they feel like slightly misprogrammed artificial humanoids, 33-year-old problems embodied by squeaky clean, 26-year-old Disney mannequins. ERROR ERROR, ARGUMENT INVALID, BRAIN NOT COMPUTE.

And on a more micro level, it’s a crappy rom-com so derivative that it seems to be deliberately devouring itself.

That Awkward Moment, which was originally title “Are We Officially Dating?”, starts with Michael B. Jordan, who comes home from his job as a fancy doctor one day to find another man in his house. Because this is a movie, we know that this man has been having sex with MBJ’s wife. Over coffee the next day, he tells his bros how he’s getting divorced, saying he came home to find some “Morris Chestnut-looking dude” in his house (rom-com callback #1). Just as a side note, Michael B. Jordan has two or three completely different haircuts in this film, depending on the scene, and it’s never explained. The boys then make a pact to stay single for their bro, a lá American Pie (rom-com callback #2?). Screw chicks, bro, let’s just party!

So then a few nights later, MBJ shows up to his boys’ house with ice cream and a bottle of Bulleit Rye hoping to sulk, but they throw the ice cream out the window, saying “what are you, Bridget Jones? (rom-com callback #3) It’s time to go get you some pussy, pussy!”

So they go out pussy hunting, the three amigos, along with their disgustingly hot platonic lady friend, who helps them pick up chicks. Zac Efron ends up screwing a bar girl after they meet while making fun of some guy for being a tool (note: the tool is virtually indistinguishable from Efron’s crew). After the sex, Zac and Miles Teller share a humorous phone call about all the sex they’re having while trying to aim their boners at the toilet.

Miles Teller then realizes that he’s in love with this platonic lady friend after she sings a song at some sort of New York piano bar open mic. Isn’t that just typical of New York chicks? Always singing heartfelt American standards to rooms full of rapt strangers? And sometimes you don’t know you’re in love with your hot best friend until they sing songs, because music is the poetry of sounds.

So then piano girl and Miles fall totally in love, even though he looks like Rachel Maddow and she looks like an incredibly sexy giraffe. They have lots of sex, but he offends her in some minor way that gets blown totally out of proportion in order to have a late-second act plot complication BECAUSE ROM-COM.

Meanwhile, Zac Efron initially blows off the bar girl, but then she shows up to Zac Efron’s work, where he and Rachel Maddow design book covers. Efron’s first cover pitch, incidentally, is a giant graphic of shoes, because, he explains, “the number one thing women fantasize about is shoes.” All the girls in the room smile coquettishly about this, driving home the message that Zac Efron really knows chicks, man. Especially the part about how much they love shoes (are you guys writing this down? this is important information on how to appeal to chicks.).

Player Efron really seems to be falling for this girl (can you believe it?!), and one night she shows up unannounced to his apartment. “That’s a TOTAL girlfriend move, bro,” his friends tell him. Uh oh! Players hate girlfriends! She walks in with another bottle of Bulleit Rye, saying “I brought scotch.” And NO ONE CORRECTS HER! That Awkward Moment features Bulleit Rye so prominently in at least four different scenes that there’s no chance that Bulleit wasn’t paying for it. And yet, the one time the characters actually acknowledge it, they call it “scotch.” I love that. It’s like the production got paid to advertise a brand of mouthwash, but no one knew how it worked, so the characters just walked around watering plants with it.

Efron later shows up to his girlfriend’s “dress-up” party. Only she meant “dress up” as in “cocktail attire,” while he thought it meant “silly costumes,” hence his “rock out with your cock out” costume featuring a giant dildo. LOL DILDO. At this point I had to wonder, did they purposely call their shot by referencing Bridget Jones in one scene, only to lift an entire scene from Bridget Jones 20 minutes later? Or were they just ripping off so many already-derivative movies that it was just a coincidence? Like a bunch of rom-coms were in a blender with the lid off, and an entire unblended chunk of Kat Heigl movie would occasionally shoot out and splatter on the screen?

Zac Efron’s girlfriend’s dad dies unexpectedly, a lá High Fidelity (rom-com callback #… uh… I’ve long since lost count), but Zac doesn’t go to the funeral because that would be too boyfriendy. She rightfully dumps him, and he decides he wants her back. His bros tell him “You have to do something to prove how much you love her, bro! Yeah, bro, like something crazy! Yeah, like something in a movie!”

It’s yet another meta moment, but once again it’s utterly without satire. Efron just shows up at a reading tour his girlfriend hosts, hijacks the mic, and gives a tearful speech (rom-com callback…) that’s more uncomfortable to watch than an Al Qaeda beheading video. He has now fulfilled his duties as a rom-com character, and they live happily ever after. Proving once again that the atonement for being a boorish asshole to a girl is to invade her private life and embarrass her in a public place. Ahh, l’amour!

At this point, I realize that I’ve now written far too many words about a Zac Efron movie. But I think it’s fascinating the degree to which rom-coms have started consuming themselves, where Sex and the City gets repackaged as a bro movie starring a coverboy from Tiger Beat. That Awkward Moment is a movie starring guys who could only exist in a movie, about guys who watch too many movies, in a world constructed entirely out of movies. How much more digestible can it get? The sequel is just going to be a series of zeroes and ones that you ingest via feeding tube.

Hey, man, don’t bogart that neck needle. Mmm, that’s good rom-com. Just like Bot 27719 used to make.

Hmm… Although I don’t agree with all of Vince’s reviews, they’re usually not too far off the mark of my own thoughts on a film. Besides, I had already decided there was no way I’d pay to go see this particular film.

My God, does this sound like a nightmare. I’d rather a see straight up chick flick over this any day.

Also, I’ve never had irrational hatred towards any actor before, never really worked up enough. But man, do I hate this Miles Teller guy. I hate his face, hate his voice, hate his smugness. Everyone says the Spectacular Now was good but I’m not sure, I was too busy hating him irrationally to pay attention to the actual movie.

Fuck yes. Ever since that kiddy drinking movie when a guy asks” Is he gonna be OK” after the (asian?) kid fell out of the window, and he VERY quickly answers “who cares dude” I’ve never liked him. Even worse is that his name is being mentioned as being the new Reed Richards.

I can’t stand him either. I can not understand the hype around this guy at all. I HATED the Spectacular Now. He’s not charming, cute, witty, endearing, he just comes off like an ass. He’d be a good drunk villain, with a beard if he could grow one.

Could not stand Spectacular Now. For a movie that was so self-serious, it was so damn cheesy and hokey. Also, I will gladly defend pretty much any element of a comic book movie and explain how it makes sense in that world, but Shailene Woodley as the nerdy, unattractive, unpopular girl requires a level of suspension of disbelief that even I can’t muster.

Did the trailer really get that much love and hype? All I heard was mockery, scorn, and derision, which it DEFINITELY deserved. I can’t get over how bad this movie looks. This one and the one with Leslie Mann and Cameron Diaz. That trailer is slowly killing me

You’re onto something, Vince, with the way rom-coms make you hate the life you have and want random things the characters have – like sweet coats and perfectly-styled apartments. I spent most of The Holiday obsessed with Cameron Diaz’s coats and why she brought 4 different ones with her to a 2-week vacation to England. Though Crate & Barrel doesn’t do shabby chic, which is definitely something you needed to know (I’m sorry).

My girlfriend constantly looks at me like a crazy person because I will randomly start yelling at the commercial for this movie sometimes when it comes on (which is insanely often). The one time I just screamed “WHO ARE YOU FOR?!” after seeing it for the 50th time during a “cynically tailored to the 18-49 male demo” show.

I think even a tiny desire by someone to see this movie is going to me my new litmus test for hating someone with a vitriol heretofore unmatched in my time on this Earth.

I’m Not There, you mean the Bob Dylan movie? Why did you refuse to finish it?
I looked for your review, but I can’t find it! The link in the Latest Movie Reviews section sends me to some Gammasquad article…

I was trying to find a shot of it in the trailer, but it just shows the one. He goes from a full fade with almost a flat top to the combed down, all-one-length look you see here. And the movie chronology is like one day apart.

Sometimes I think that being a film reviewer would be the greatest job ever and then movies like this come along and I realize that you have to watch stuff like this too. You’re a better man than me for taking these bullets for us!

the crux of this movie’s immediate demise is that nobody wants to see winners win. protagonists needs flaws for audiences to emote sympathetically for them. these 3 catalog (fashion & home) models with their relentless pussy-havin’ ways don’t need our rooting for them. they won. they don’t need REAL LASTING romance to win harder. they never even established that as their real goal. AND WHY WOULD IT BE? If they get dumped by the charmers, the end of the movie is just them returning to their EXTRAVAGANTLY WONDERFUL lives, just sans chick #452 with the hot mouth that music’d from her face. SHUT IT DOWN.

I love how in these kinds of movies the dudebros can just go out and GET PUSSY, MAN! Like there’s some kind of pussy faucet you turn on by going to a bar, making a joke to a hot chick about the music playing, and next thing you know you’re fucking in a bathroom stall. It’s the same line of logic that made guys write a movie where a single Josh Hartnett gives up sex for 40 days and makes that seem like an impossible task.

Oh god, that was awful. I was just thinking how the trailer raised my hate to 40 Days or whatever it was levels; burning hot. They’re really knocking out the male audience who knows that dating and hooking up isn’t easy… so, essentially any guy over 30.

So now then there’s gonna be a bunch of 13 year old bros thinking that they can TOTALLY CRUSH IT! And have money at 26. Fuck.

I was going to comment earlier but after watching that trailer I spent an hour outside smashing random American Apparel customers in the face with my keyboard. I’m good now, just made bail and am now posting from my phone. This is also how I belive Vince’s first draft of this review went.

This movie looks like a plate of hot shit, but I understand why it’s being made. Michael B Jordan and Miles Teller both proved they had tons of potential last year, so not surprised they are going to be in a hokey bro romcom to try to get a mainstream audience exposure, Hopefully they deliver something good this year, I’m hearing nothing but fantastic things about Whiplash.

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